


The Slow Awakening

by Shi_3



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Getting In The Egg's Head, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, It's Actually Pretty Simple, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Short One Shot, This Is Just Solas Deciding To Destroy The World, Tranquil Mages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:53:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23880358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shi_3/pseuds/Shi_3
Summary: It was all his doing. His fault.
Kudos: 1





	The Slow Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> [Solas Theme Extended](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agz8AQhfHZI)  
> Music to read to, if that's your thing, though it's a lot longer than it'll take to read.

He had a premonition, at the beginning, that he would have to destroy it all. 

However, he pulled it back. Tried to misshape and contain the terrible thought by telling himself it was no premonition. It was simply a hot-headed, foolish _desire_ . How could it not be when he gazed upon the devastation, the beginnings of absolute ruin the Evanuris had heedlessly birthed and raised? What had once flowed through them as ichor, what had made them strong, had corrupted. There was a poison running deep in their blood now, deep in the land, etched into the faces and souls of the People. It had destroyed the things he had loved most. It had destroyed _them_. They, in turn, had destroyed Mythal. 

He consoled himself that there was hope. There had to be. 

There was always a way to overcome, to win. That was the inner steel that had driven them so long ago, when they were younger and more pure. None come out of war pure, but they had come out victorious. Against the odds. 

He was against the odds once again. He had not lost his steel though. He would salvage this disaster. He would lock away the source of corruption and strangle out the remaining poison. Lance the wound and let it heal. 

What painful, bloody work it was. It took more of him than he had ever imagined it could. It nearly killed him. 

While he wandered the deep paths in the Fade and made sure his prison was locked tight, he felt that same dreaded premonition. When desperate, strange calls brought him closer to the waking world and he saw desperate, strange elves who begged for help. The Fade echoed a wrongness, one that did not ease with time. However, there was little he could do. Unlike the ones who called to him, he did not even have an entity he could pray to or to supplicate for the welfare of his people. He had only known one other who had ever truly cared for the welfare of the People. She was gone and he was crippled. Locked away by his own weakness and foolishness, almost as much a prisoner as his enemies. He could only walk through the Fade as a ghost, merely hoping that the waking world was not as broken as he feared. He struggled to get back, to step off the deep paths of the Fade, but he began to think that he would never wake. That he was fated to wander through the vague impressions of the world forever, painfully wondering how terribly he had erred. 

It was more painful to see it. 

Weak as a child, soul aching and itching because of his Veil, he physically wandered the lands. Feeling more lost here than he had ever felt within the darker depths of the Fade. It was all wrong. 

The People, they were gone. They had never healed. There was still that poison on their faces and in their souls. Childishly, they clung to it. They were lost, wandering as strangers in their own lands. On their last breath and still bound to their false gods, their true betrayers. But this time, they were content to die. They were not only lost, they were blind. Just like the fragmented knowledge they hoarded, they were mere shadows.

He was prepared to take the blame, to take the responsibility again. He still wanted to set them free, and he would not leave until it was truly done this time. They did worse than refuse to break free of their chains though, they laughed at the thought. They had no awareness, no sight, they couldn’t even fathom that they were prisoners. They were children, thinking that they had been clever to cage themselves. Their calloused minds made his raw and tender soul bleed. 

It was all his doing. His fault. 

He consoled himself that he could yet do something. There must be a way to breathe life back into the People. There must be hope. 

He felt akin to those desperate and strange souls who had been so desolate they had called to him through the deep valleys of the Fade. Weak and small, hoping against hope. He felt simply foolish when he went to the cities and saw the remnants of his people. 

They were husks of themselves, starved of their magic and glory. So fallen that the Quicklings ruled over them and ground them into the dirt. They were weaker than children, worse than slaves. They were so withered, they were unrecognizable as the remnants of the powerful and venerated. He looked in their eyes and he couldn't see any life. His people, they were dead. They were dust, and only shadows were left. 

He had killed them.

For the first time in his life, he truly wished to die himself. To throw himself back into darkness and never leave. To curse himself and any other “god” that had ever walked this earth and then die.

He could barely stand to look at any of them, these walking dead. At the ruin he had sowed. It was worse than he had ever imagined it could be. 

However, fate throws an elven girl into his arms. Or perhaps he is thrown into her arms. He stumbles right into her on the street. She looks at him with lifeless eyes, which is not a new horror, but there is something different about it. There is something about her that calls for his undivided attention. Something dreadful. 

“Pardon me, Serrah,” she says with no emotion and a chill steals through him. She is paler than the dead. 

He looks at her carefully, examines this dead girl who walks. There is utter emptiness in her eyes. He reaches out, but he cannot feel her. No matter how hard he clutches her in his hands or how deeply he looks for any spark of existence, there is nothing there. Not in her eyes or her soul. The only spark he can see is branded onto her forehead.

He’s never seen magic like this. It’s incomprehensible. To cut someone off from the Fade. From very life. They stripped her of her very soul. It’s worse than a poisoned, living death. It is worse than being dust. 

This is the People. Stripped of their very soul. Gone. 

He had thought himself hopeless before, but this shreds and tears it truly from him. 

He slowly collapses, clutching the ultimate memorial of his folly in his hands. He wishes he could run from it. That he could break it. There is nothing he can do but stare and play witness for tragedy though. There is nothing he can even say. Nothing to contain or shape this raw _devastation_ in his soul. 

“Why are you crying?” she asks with a callous innocence. Not even knowing, and he can see in her eyes that she would never understand. He would never be able to explain it to her. She cannot feel it, the atrocity that she is. She does not care. She can’t care.

She asks if she can help him. It’s laughable. But all he can do is weep, because he cannot help her. In this devastated world he no longer understands, this is beyond him. 

No, there is no help for this. 

He’s never had anyone to pray to. There is no one he can cry to, scream to. No one to demand acknowledgement, forgiveness, or help from. He’s never wanted to either, not until this moment. He wants to look to the skies and howl. He feels weak enough that he would have taken a god in that moment, if there was one to be had. He would have begged. Begged for help, for anything that could be a balm to this pain. For someone else to fix this horror. Or perhaps he would lay the blame at their feet, so he did not have to carry it. 

But, there is no one here but him. He is the last of the Evanuris. He is the only one to blame. He is the only one who can be held responsible for these mistakes. He has to fix this atrocity. 

His known steel is gone, there is no hope, but he’s filled with a new determination. His despairing, broken heart holds a cutting edge. 

It’s not a premonition. It is not desire. It’s a simple knowledge of his duty.

There is only one way to salvage this disaster. He has to tear down the Veil and rescind this nightmare. He has to destroy this corrupted and fallen world. It is worse than dead. It must be razed and restored. Something greater must be allowed to rise from the ashes. 

He is weak, but a plan starts to form in his mind.

His people are gone, but he will bring them back. 

**Author's Note:**

> A simple idea I had when Solas said something in Trespasser about how being in the world had been like walking around through a world of tranquil. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
